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Investigative journalism is expensive. Partnerships and grants can be helpful, but they can also impose situations or block procedures. Could crowdfunding, where members of the public donate to research, offer an alternative?
“Crowdfunding serves as a crucial revenue source in investigative journalism, enabling funding for stories that might otherwise remain uncovered,” says Tanja Aitamurto, the author of “Crowdfunding for Journalism” and an assistant professor in communication at the University of Illinois Chicago. “These crowdfunded stories often emerge outside mainstream media and large newsrooms, contributing significantly to journalism by diversifying producers and voices.”
To explore the opportunities and challenging situations of crowdfunding research, GIJN spoke to 3 newsrooms that pioneered this model: Noteworthy in Ireland, a community-led newsroom where readers provide and fund survey proposals, and Portuguese investigative podcast Fumaça and Agência Pública from Brazil, which manage membership models and have experimented with crowdfunding campaigns.
Of particular note is an Irish investigative platform that is part of the Journal, a national newspaper. The newsroom’s technique for engaging readers is twofold: first, anyone can submit a concept for a survey, and second, readers can express projects by contributing to the survey. in charge of conducting surveys on the issues that interest them most.
Both spaces reflect the newsroom’s project of telling never-before-told stories, offering a way to fund express projects and expand what is committed.
“The diversity of projects and what is supported shows what other people want to fund,” says Maria Delaney, editor of Noteworthy, adding that stories that affect communities such as nomads, disabled people, or “people outside the realm of general attention information” appear in the proposals.
Submissions are tracked in Trello, a content control system, and the editorial team meets every two weeks to discuss proposed ideas, assess the time sensitivity of submissions, or whether they are suitable for crowdfunding.
Approved submissions are then listed on Noteworthy’s site with individual financial targets and progress bars, showing the amount raised and number of backers. The team reviews the slate of open ideas every six months to see which are making sufficient progress.
It’s worth noting that lately there are 59 storybook concepts open for funding: from a call for research into animal welfare to a speech about air pollution near schools.
In 2023, Noteworthy published 25 stories based on community-submitted proposals, with an average reader contribution of €35 (US$38). Since 2019, the team have published 77 investigations — with the makeup/ proportion of reader support varying from project to project. Around 10 of these had partial or full grant funding, with the remainder a mixture of crowdfunding or financial support by The Journal.
Assessing the cost of a crowdfunded survey is a learning experience. Early proposals were given modest monetary targets, but the team soon discovered that more cash was needed to execute them.
For the approved proposal, a journalist will draft an initial budget, double-checked by an editor, with an estimate of the time and prices of interviews, research, writing, editing, multimedia production, design work, legal support, as well as media and freedom. . requests for information.
Journalism represents the highest cost of almost all site-funded investigations, Delaney says, adding that the scope of the investigation will have to be limited enough; Otherwise, pricing and finishing the job can be incredibly challenging.
Noteworthy’s style means that you will take advantage of the Journal’s help and resources, or that you will use the budget of your general research fund to which readers can also donate.
His research on racism in the office and recruitment processes in Ireland, for example, was funded partly through crowdinvestment and partly through the general fund. After an initial target of €2,290 (US$2,474) was not met, neither the scope of the task nor the monetary target was reduced. Although this investment limited to €517 (US$558) – and meant that journalists were not able to spend as much time delving into the story as they would have liked – meant that the newsroom can still deliver stories to those who supported the investigation.
Delaney recommends regular interaction with funders, from sharing progress or updates to target amounts to reporting on the long-term impact of a story, such as a policy or legislative change, even if it comes years later.
Transparency is also key, he says, when collective investment doesn’t work. If, after review, a proposal is canceled because the story is no longer relevant, supporters can get a refund or move their investment to an allocation or the general research fund created. through the publishers. ” It’s vital that other people realize that we’re not going to keep their money forever,” Delaney says.
Brazil’s Agência Pública has used crowdfunding to support its newsroom since its launch in 2011, and in the past offered supporters a chance to vote on what stories the newsroom should pursue as a membership perk.
But recently, the newsroom has experimented with crowdfunding for express investigations, adding an in-depth investigation of documents and data withheld through the country’s debatable former president, Jair Bolsonaro, and his government.
Journalists from Agência Pública and other Brazilian newsrooms have tried for years to gain access to documents and data that could reveal conceivable crimes and abuses committed through the government, but their requests for data have been consistently denied.
Although they did not know exactly what awaited them after Bolsonaro’s departure, the new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had promised to open the “black box” and citizens did not find it easy to have greater transparency in government, so they were confident. Download more information.
“We didn’t know what the final stories would be because we didn’t know what the documents said, but there was an issue: What had Bolsonaro hidden?” explains Giulia Afiune, audience editor at Agência Pública.
While the uncertainty meant it was hard to tell potential funders what or how many stories might result from their support, in this case that did not matter: The proposed investigation tapped into the curiosity of its audience and on-the-street conversations about accountability, says Afiune.
“We had to find the intersection between what other people wanted to read and what we wanted to work on,” he says. “Listening to what other people are saying is probably the most productive way to understand what will move them. “. »
The editorial presented its crowdfunding crusade in December 2022, the last month of Bolsonaro’s presidency.
Five journalists committed themselves to the investigation, but the buy-in from the entire editorial team contributed to the enduring good fortune of the crowdfunding crusade and research.
A social media campaign to promote the crowdfunding initiative included an Instagram Live asking followers what they wanted to know; while elsewhere, the team found themselves riffing a Wonder one-hit, “Tá na Hora do Jair Já Ir Embora” (rough translation: It’s time for Jair to go), which went viral.
Although Agência Pública has a club-like style and organizes crusades to inspire new registrations, this fundraising campaign has been their biggest success to date. He earned more than 2,000 one-time donations – with an average donation of R$23 (US$4. 66) – and helped the store grow its club from 500 to a total of 2,000.
The crowdfunding window closed in mid-January 2023, just as the first research papers were published, reporting unpublished minutes from 233 COVID-19 crisis meetings, adding major points about who gave the order to increase chloroquine production in 2020, despite WHO warnings about the drug’s lack of efficacy against the coronavirus. For the team, it was vital to publish a few stories before the crowdfunding window closed, as funders give more in the “home stretch” of a campaign, Afiune says.
Since then, Pùblica has also used crowdfunding for a series of podcasts investigating allegations of sexual abuse through a Brazilian business leader.
The newsroom tried unsuccessfully to find a commercial partner — possibly due to the subject matter — so they turned to their audience again. A general overview of the budget needed — 90,000 Reals (US$18,000) — was shared with the audience, with messaging that addressed the expensive nature of the proposal, where the money would be used, and the need in this case to prepare a legal fund.
“You can’t crowdfund something for release next month,” Afiune says. “It takes time for people to donate and to plan and execute a campaign.”
Both assignments taught them the benefits of direct calls to action, says Afiune: “When you have a big editorial assignment that comes at the end of a big crowdfunding campaign, the chances of good luck are higher because they promise something valuable in return. “
Portuguese investigative journalism podcast platform Fumaça aspires to be “radically transparent”: it makes public all aspects of its costs, budgets and finances, and opens up its editorial and organisational processes of production and decision-making.
The newsroom has a club program, but has also used crowdfunding for its series, Desassossego (Problems), a series about fitness and intellectual illness, which will premiere in November 2022.
They started broadcasting with the crowdfunding campaign still live: Running an ongoing investigation while launching new episodes helped them reach new audiences and potential members, and in some cases, even converted them into donors.
“By listening to the episodes, they can easily perceive the comments they receive and the price we give them,” says Maria Almeida, journalist and co-founder of Fumaça.
The topic of Fumaça’s research is very relevant, which aroused interest and participation in the live listening evenings. Media and social media interest in the series has also been strong, Almeida says, which helped expand Fumaça’s success to potential funders.
Another strategy — which ties into their promise of radical transparency — was to provide regular updates about where the investigation was going, and about how the money was being spent, which in turn helps build trust with audience members, says Almeida.
Regular communication is especially vital in long-running or slow-moving investigations — it’s hard to wait for when an investigation will be completed, but you can let others know what you’re working on right now, he says.
Fumaça also released excerpts of audio interviews as part of his communications with his followers. “It’s vital to keep people engaged and give them an idea of what an hour-long interview series will be like,” he says. , email newsletters, and an active Slack network are used to having a following.
This technique may be difficult when parts of an investigation need to be withheld because disclosure would threaten the long-term duration of the investigation. The main points that emerge from an ongoing investigation into police brutality in Portugal, for example, cannot be shared in reality. -Time for legal reasons or until more in-depth reports are made.
And the campaigns themselves have to pivot, says Almeida. The intellectual aptitude research podcast took two years to produce, but toward the end of the research, the newsroom changed its collective investment message from supporting the production of the podcast to investing in a journalist contract.
Realizing that if people hadn’t joined the crowdfunding by the time it was nearly over, it was unlikely the same call-to-action would encourage them to do so, they decided to break down how continued support to fund a reporter’s contract could help them continue equitable pay practices and also produce more investigative journalism.
“We’re radically transparent, that’s why we share as much as we can,” Almeida says. “We have that commitment to our audience and that’s not going to change. “
Laura Oliver is a freelance journalist founded in the United Kingdom. She has written for The Guardian, BBC, Euronews and others. She is a regular journalism lecturer for the Thomson Foundation and the Thomson Reuters Foundation and works as a strategy representative for newsrooms. You can find her paintings here.
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